News Briefs Woodpecker

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Spring 2013 Fish & Wildlife News SPOTLIGHT Science and a Changing Climate 8 Kid’s World 12 The Most Remote Place in Alaska 14 Cape Fear River Restoration 18 what’s inside Departments From the Director / 1 News / 2 Around the Service / 22 Our People / 32 Features SPOTLIGHT Science and a Changing Climate / 8 Kid’s World / 12 Connecting children with nature across the globe by VALERIE ROSE REDMOND The Most Remote Place in Alaska / 14 Service researchers, partners journey to St. Matthew Island by MARC D. ROMANO, MARIANNE APLIN and POPPY BENSON On the cover: Spring storm in the Great Basin in Utah. Larry Crist / USFWS from the director Thinking and Conserving for the Long Term am sure most of us have seen those AT&T ads survive in the future and how? What will it need and I where an adult asks children what’s better: faster what can we do to help it? or slower, more or less, two things or one thing? We were thinking long term recently when we tried to They got me thinking of my own question: What’s eliminate most commercial trade in polar bears at better: a long wait or short wait? March’s meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Well, of course, waiting a short time is better. Right? Flora (CITES). The proposal fell short. Opposing countries said that trade is not a major issue and Not in conservation. Conservation is about the that polar bears are threatened by climate change. long term. Certainly, a warming climate is the overpowering issue, but trade is a growing concern. And the world Our job is to make sure wild things and wild places could have done something about it. Instead, CITES are around not just for us and our children, but for parties chose to value short-term thinking over the our children’s children and even longer. long-term survival of polar bears. Sad. Unfortunately, we live in a world where fast is often Long-term thinking is also behind our surrogate better than slow, where more is usually better than species effort. One species is the specific target of our less, where two are valued better than one, and where conservation efforts — that gives us a goal and lets short-term thinking is more rewarding. Nowadays everyone clearly see conservation successes. But the stakes seem so much higher and long-term many other species also benefit. thinking is so challenging. For instance, since 1991, the Service and many Less than 100 years ago, there weren’t even 2 billion partners have reintroduced thousands of the really people on the planet. Now, we have more than cute black-footed ferrets into the wild. Protecting and 7 billion. By the middle of the century, we will be conserving the prairie landscape for the black-footed sharing this planet with 9 billion others, or maybe ferret supports many other species that call the 11 billion. western grasslands and sage-steppe prairie home. No matter how you slice it, we humans are going to Most people may care only about the black-footed ask more of the planet: More food, more fiber, more ferret (did I mention they’re cute?), but we in the fuel, more fresh water. Less will be available for the conservation community can appreciate the benefits rest of what we call “biodiversity,” the wild things. coming to eagles and other raptors, mountain plovers, burrowing owls, swift fox, pronghorn, bison, several That means we cannot expect tomorrow’s world to types of prairie grouse and more. have all of today’s wild life, in all of today’s diversity and abundance, and in all of today’s places. We are emphasizing conservation work that brings the biggest long-term return on our investment. It also means that we will have to make active choices. We must decide what will come to the future with us, Surrogate species will also help us remain relevant in in what abundance and diversity, and in what places. a world where two beats one, faster beats slower, more beats less. As people are more disconnected And we’ll face the more challenging decision: from nature, they seem more and more fascinated What will not. with wild life. If we choose the right conservation targets, the right surrogates, in the right places, This doesn’t mean we are giving up on some species. people will support us. It just means that in many cases, we may not be able to prevent extinction. Mollie Beattie, the first Service Director I worked for, once said, “There’s only one conflict, and that’s We must make these decisions, thinking about the between short-term and long-term thinking.” She got long term. We must ask ourselves: Can this species it right. Here’s to playing the long game! Spring 2013 Fish & Wildlife News / 1 Puerto Rican news briefs Woodpecker Migratory Bird Program Grantee Wins Coveted Conservation Award irdLife International, a world- majority of them to Latin America Brenowned organization and a and the Caribbean. The grantee of the Service’s Neotropical Migratory Bird Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act provides grant Conservation Act, has won a funding to conserve these BBVA Foundation Biodiversity species, and has funded BirdLife Conservation Award for their for the last nine years, putting Important Bird Areas program. more than $2 million toward BBVA, a Spanish foundation, the organization’s critical gives this prestigious award to a conservation work. Because the single winner in Latin America act requires a 3 to 1 match of each year, with a prize of 250,000 grant funds, this investment has euros (about $325,000). leveraged an additional $6.5 million for bird conservation. BirdLife is an organization of 117 conservation groups in as many The Service’s grant funds to this countries. Its work on Important project, and the matching funds, Bird Areas has recorded a helped BirdLife document the An Important Bird Area in whopping 2,345 biodiversity role of Important Bird Areas in Haiti in the Massif de la hotspots for birds in Central and conserving Neotropical migrants Selle provides a breeding South America. These hotspots and helped to develop an online area for black-capped help countries design habitat directory for the highest priority petrels. networks to protect the world’s areas for conservation action. most diverse birdlife, “which is Grant funding also supported proving an invaluable aid...since linking communities in Canada, birds are a key biodiversity Mexico and the United States to indicator species,” members of sites in South America to develop the prize jury noted. The jury went collaborative conservation on to praise BirdLife for “proving projects and protect birds a catalyst for new structures throughout their migratory and organizations to work journey. BirdLife will use the collaboratively on conservation BBVA Foundation award to issues across Latin American strengthen monitoring and countries.” conservation in and around Important Bird Areas that are at A biodiversity hotspot is an area risk due to habitat destruction with a large number of species. and other threats, and to further The blue-footed booby off These species-rich areas provide leverage funds from the act. the coast of Ecuador. important habitat and natural resources, particularly for wildlife struggling for survival. Identifying For more information them can help prioritize areas to BBVA Foundation Award protect to help wildlife the most. <bit.ly/WjNQgA> Important Bird Areas have helped BirdLife International show that Central and South <www.birdlife.org> America have the most avian Neotropical Migratory diversity of any area on Earth. Bird Conservation Act Many of these are migrants— <fws.gov/birdhabitat/Grants/ of the 800 bird species in the NMBCA/ United States, 500 migrate, the 2 / Fish & Wildlife News Spring 2013 news briefs S Wintering Habits of FW S A crucial component for the CANADA RY/U Burrowing Owls Come T landscape of burrowing owls is E GEN the presence of badgers, prairie G as a Surprise R O dogs, ground squirrels or other inter migration certainly L: GE mammals that create the burrows Wdoesn’t mean a romantic OW the owls use. While both Gregg getaway for burrowing and Johnson support the use of owls — males and females don’t artificial burrows to help the even winter in the same place. owl population, they agree that INDSEY HAYES. a longer-term solution is to L NAL O I Burrowing owls are listed as promote the health of the T ME AND endangered in Canada and as O overall ecosystem owls inhabit. ERNA T N I E a species of special concern in “Artificial burrows have been a F I L Y WELLIC the United States, where their O success, but we need to think distribution and numbers are N, TR bigger,” says Gregg. “Knowing O ESY BIRD T NS R shrinking. In order to more where the owls go in the winter OH COU N, effectively manage the population is one piece of the puzzle, and O L AVID H. J AVID CO and, hopefully, reverse the now we have to think about D O Y B RED decline, biologists need to know what is next.” F L A more about the wintering habits N MAP of the owls. “You can’t manage a O So what’s next for the ASED B species knowing half the story,” , backpacking owls? Both Gregg says Service biologist Mike Breeding site OTTO and Johnson answer with one Gregg who described “gaps in word: satellites. Wintering site ELLICCI knowledge” about when and MEXICO P where the owls winter and how Female migration Geolocators can only give N: JANE O I many of them make the trip.

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